Brewmaster Monk Gear Recommendations

This section of the Brewmaster Monk guide covers everything about gear: stat priorities, gear recommendations from dungeons and raids, and legendary item rankings. This guide is written by BrewingScribe, read more at Brewing Mastery. Updated for the latest patch.

Gear and Stat Prioritization

The amount of haste you need to get sufficient brews to have a comfortable rotation is a very personal number, but a good rule of thumb isat least 14.6% haste, so you have at least a 7 second CD on Keg Smash. That's essentially the only significant haste value we can get.

Do note that the value of Critical Strike and Mastery fluctuates very highly. If you are looking at single-digit overhealing from your healers, Crit is actually stronger than Versatility when it comes to overall survivability. As well, Mastery is very strong when facing melee damage but in an instance like The Nighthold, where a majority of damage is magic, it is less effective.

Legendaries

The following is every legendary item that Brewmasters have access to, in a rough order of priority. Do remember that at the start of theexpansion, you can only wear one legendary item, two if you get the research at your class hall. As well,

Anvil-Hardened Wristwraps - Every time you dodge an enemy attack or when an enemy misses, the remaining cooldowns on your Brews are reduced by 1second. These are extremely powerful in dungeon content, but tend to become less useful when raiding.

Jewel of the Lost Abbey - Enables your purifies to be a bit more efficient as well as reduces your burst intake by a bit.

Fundamental Observation - Makes your Zen Meditation not break on melee or movement as well as slashes its cooldown by 50%. Essentially, it makesZen Meditation into a better Shield Wall. Being said, if you aren't in content where you could use the extra Zen Meditation, this isn't too powerful.When you are though, this is a competitive choice.

Archimonde's Hatred Reborn - Upon activation you gain an absorb shield equal to 30% of your maximum health for 10 seconds. When it expires, you deal 75%of its value in damage split between all nearby enemies. Cooldown of 1 minute, 15 seconds. With passive versatility and mastery this is a solidly attractiveoption for essentially all content. It's definitely a strong choice.

Cinidaria, the Symbiote - Providing 30% damage dealt when the enemy is above 90% health, Cinidaria is a fairly strong DPS option for raids. The additionalself healing is also a strong bonus. This also has arguable use in high Mythic+, when enemies and bosses have particularly high health pools.

Gai Plin's Soothing Sash - Provides an okay amount of self-healing when you purify, equal to 25% of the amount of damage purified.

Sephuz's Secret - Grants a passive +10% movement speed and +2% Haste. Whenever you disorient, stun, or interrupt an enemy or successfullydispel an ally, those values become +70% movement speed and 25% haste for 10 seconds. This can only happen once every 30 seconds. Generallythis is only reliably useful in dungeons and even then I don't find this legendary appealing. Haste isn't drastically important to us and we alreadyhave more than enough burst movement to get from pack to pack as is.

Generally all options here sans Sephuz are lucrative drops, but its the Lost Abbey and Soul of the Grandmaster which are exceptionally powerful tanking legendaries foressentially all content.

Gearing for Raids

Because titanforged gear is now a thing, the concept of a best in slot set is more or less not worth worrying about as item level of a less-than-optimal piececan outweigh the less than useful stats. As long as you roughly maintain the stat priority, with help from food, enchants, and gems, you're going to be finewith whatever. That being said, I do want to touch upon relics and trinkets that I would say to try and hunt for at mythic level, as they provide the mostmeaningful power at roughly the same item level. There are also some items with set bonuses as well as other special effects on them that are worth mentioning.For more information on gearing for raids, check out the Legion Gearing Guide!

As well, for the sake of convenience, the following tabs also link every item you can get from 7.0 dungeons.

Raid Gear, Trinkets, & Items of Interest

As mentioned, due to the advent of titanforged gear, item level of drops matters more than a relatively ephemeral Best In Slot list. In lieu of one forraids, here are all the trinkets and other items of interest (including relics) for the current content that are worth your time, as these are the pieceswhich are the most interesting and most likely to be impactful. As well, bear in mind that Mythic+ level Dungeon gear will be comparable to raid loot,as you can get a higher item leve for it. In particular, there are some dungeon trinkets which are notably more impactful than raid trinkets and it isn't abad idea to do Mythic+ in an attempt to get them. Note that all of the following pieces of gear are not placed in order of usefulness, and are rather just listed.

Coagulated Nightwell Residue - Generates stacks of a buff which you can spend to get a stacking absorb shield. At 10 stacks this will be about 35-40% of your HP,and can be generated in a bit less than 2 minutes with some haste. This is actually pretty strong, all things considered and is a solid piece to collect.

Impenetrable Nerubian Husk - With static haste and an armor proc, the Impenetrable Nerubian Husk is very powerful. We have low armor which means lowerdiminishing returns and this proc, even on average, will give us about 20-25% additional armor. Once it gets rolling you're looking at doubling yourarmor or more if you get this at a high enough item level.

Shivermaw's Jawbone - Once every minute you can deal AoE damage and generate a stacking versatility buff depending on how many you hit. This is analright trinket. At Mythic level (840 ilvl) you're looking at just shy of 10% versatility if you hit all 5 enemies. Not very gamebreaking, especially sincewith Keg Smash we're covered on AoE slows.

Orb of Torment - On use, you will now heal for 50% of your damage dealt to a specific enemy. If you play optimally, saving Exploding Keg for this,you can generate the rough equivalent of 5 Gift of the Ox orbs. Another strong trinket, it gives a significant amount of self healing on demand.

Ember of Nullification - When taking magic damage, there is a chance that the enemy will be silenced. With a 20 second cooldown, this is pretty strongif you're facing a lot of casters in dungeons.

Shard of Rokmora - The Shard of Rokmora essentially ignores a certain amount of damage taken, up to a cap dependent on its item level. Overallcompared to other absorb trinkets, this isn't that powerful.

Talisman of the Cragshaper - Ignores 50% of damage taken, up to a cap dependent on its item level. This is definitely better than the Shard of Rokmora with asimilar absorb cap but half the cooldown, but is still more of an alright trinket than an amazing one.

Chrono Shard - Part of the Journey Through Time set, this trinket has a chance to proc a very large amount of haste about once per minute. I don'tlike this mainly because I dislike having a proc impact our resource generation. You get so much haste from this - even more if you have the set -that when you get that haste, there's going to be notable diminishing returns on it, especially since you'll want to get 30% haste that is largely static.if you rely on this proc to average 30%, you're going to have points where your resource generation is largely insufficient, as this only has a rough16% uptime. Also, be warned, this is considered a DPS trinket.

Parjesh's Medallion - When you drop below 35% health you gain a relatively small amount of additional health and some mastery for 12 seconds.Cannot occur more than once every 1.5 minutes. Considering we have Obstinate Determination this trinket really isn't that useful. The amount of health you gain will besomewhere between 8 and 15% of your HP, depending, and you gain about 5% mastery, which is less than 5% dodge. Other trinkets are going to bemuch more meaningful for you.

Darkmoon Deck: Immortality - With baseline agility and a random but potent armor buff, this trinket is arguably one of the strongest we can get in the game for itsreliable capacity to give us something we really miss: physical damage reduction. If you have the cash or ink necessary to acquire this trinket and buff its ilvl,I wholeheartedly recommend this piece.

Before going into the different items, it's important to note that if you manage to kill Nightbane and get a Harness of Smoldering Betrayal, the trinket's proc / on-use effects areincreased by 30%. So good luck with your speed-runs!

Majordomo's Dinner Bell - With baseline stamina, the base stats aren't amazing. However, this does provide some power increase, albeit a randomly useful one,on-use, with a fairly short cooldown. This isn't an amazing trinket, but it's not worth throwing away if you have a notably worse one.

Inescapable Dread - In particular, because of how often we dodge auto-attacks, this isn't as impactful for us as it would be for other tanks. Being said, thebaseline versatility isn't bad and a lot of damage does come from melee hits so it does have a benefit. Again it's better than some other trinkets andif you see a sizeable ilvl upgrade, it's not horrible.

Raven Eidolon - Basically it's a dungeon group sized Avert Harm from way back in the day. The amount of damage you can actually avert per personisn't too significant though. With mastery and stamina, you're looking at decent enough base stats. Combine this with the chestpiece off Nightbane andyou could see some stronger benefits for your group, but that's true of all the trinkets from the new Karazhan dungeon.

Drape of Shame - While a bit more promiment for healers, as a Brewmaster you do have some self-healing. It's not the most optimized for stats,but it's a novelty to pick up if it's a nice item level upgrade.

Cloak of Sweltering Flame - I like this because it's got good stats and it enables even more stupid movement speed for Brewmasters. What's not to like?

Choker of Barbed Reins - Unfortunately, this item no longer procs off stagger and so is much less powerful for us. It still has some value, but it isn't significant amounts of damage, like it was in 7.1.5.

Seal of Darkshire Nobility - More or less worthless against bosses and during raids, this does have some solid benefits when dealing with the relatively shortcombat duration of killing trash packs in Mythic+ dungeons.

Life Relic(s): ,

Storm Relic(s):

The Cathedral of Eternal Night, aside from a pretty nice looking leather set, doesn't have anything too exciting in regards to gear. Splinters of Agronox is a fairly nice lookingDPS trinket, but we can't roll on it as Brewmasters (as of April 10th), and the is a Storm relic that actually has a trait we like to look.

Grotesque Statuette - Enemies which hit you can take a stacking damage reduction debuff (which doesn't refresh). While previously very strong,this has been nerfed very hard and is no longer a must-have piece, if something you'd really want to grab much at all.

Unbridled Fury - A health and armor-boosting buff on a 2 minute cooldown. Solid potential to help survive large hits, especially physical damage.

Goblet of Nightmarish Ichor - Taking damage has a chance of spawning a nearby Nightmarish Ichor, which you can walk over to receive a significant Versatility buff.You might want to skip this if you aren't comfortable with moving around to gather Gift of the Ox orbs. About 2 procs per minute.

Phantasmal Echo - If you drop below 50% health, you will get a buff which reduces all damage taken by 30% until you hit a threshold of damage or its20 second duration expires. Cooldown of 2 minutes. This is actually a really cool proc for unexpected burst damage taken. If you are using Gift of the Mists,it might not be a good idea to use this trinket as that talent makes us want to hover roughly around that health amount in order to maximize healingfrom Gift of the Ox. That's mostly in lower dungeon content though, so that's not as big a worry.

There really isn't much interesting loot here that deserves special mention outside of the standard "it can be a higher ilvl, so go for the upgrade.The only notable item in fact is the trinket, Eye of Guarm, which is an agility stat-stick. Do note however that the base item level for all gear fromthe Trial of Valor is 10 item levels higher than anything you can find in the Emerald Nightmare!

Animated Exoskeleton - Reduces damage taken by 30% for 15 seconds or until you have mitigated a certain amount of damage. Has a 2 minute cooldown.This is a fairly solid trinket to deal with anticipated burst damage.

Fang of Tichondrius - Gain a high amount of Leech for 8 seconds, with a 1 minute cooldown.. This isn't a bad choice for encounters with lots of adds,as the majority of your damage dealt as a Brewmaster does come from your area of effect abilities.

Infernal Contract - On use, reduces damage taken by 50% for 10 seconds, but then you take 10% more damage for up to 30 seconds or a damage thresholdafter that effect ends. This trinket has a 2 minute cooldown. This is a brilliant trinket for encounters with high, predictable burst, but then lower damage afterwards.

Royal Dagger Haft - This trinket is currently bugged for us and I would not recommend picking it up. In theory, it would absorb a large amount of damagefrom an attack that would kill you. If the effect prevents your death, you are healed and you take the damage prevented over 10 seconds. This would be fairly strongfor preventing being bursted down, but we already do this very well by the nature of our kit.

Feverish Carapace - While this appears nice, the trinket actually procs less for Brewmasters than other tanks, so it's not a high priority pick.

Shifting Cosmic Sliver - Reduces the remaining cooldown on Fortifying Brew by 10 seconds for each stack or increases its remaining duration by 1 secondper stack when used. Approximately 4 procs per minute, you aren't looking at anything too amazing here. Fortifying Brew is a good cooldown but generally itsnot amazing enough to warrant this trinket over something that provides more consistent defensive value.

Recompiled Guardian Module - heals for a very minor amount of health and provides some slight raid support. Not really an enticing trinket.

Reliquary of the Damned - a strong damage reduction trinket with an enticing cooldown mechanic, allowing it to be more useful the more it is needed.Baseline stats are pretty weak, being stamina, but its on-use is relatively nice.

Leviathan's Hunger - The somewhat weak baseline stat of haste belies the fairly nice damage burst and healing burst you get from this trinket, which aren't awful.

Tier Piece Priority

As mentioned above, due to item level being relative, a true best in slot set is going to be more or less non-existent. However with Legion we havesix pieces of tier gear that we can acquire, but we only need four. So of course, that means there's two pieces that can be swapped out for pieceswith more optimal stats. Naturally, have the four pieces you want that best fit your Legendary setup.

An important note here is that these set bonuses are actually pretty strong. These significantly increase yout healing throughput and can givePurifying Brew a run for its money in terms of damage purified, especially now in more tense situations.

Finding Gear on Wowhead

From simple recommendations to advanced filters, Wowhead can help you find the gear you want.

Item Finder

The Item Finder is a great way to search for gear if you are new to Wowhead's filtering system.

Choose what item category, gear slot, and class specialization you're interested in, and it will return results for you. You can further narrow it down by source--including gear from LFR and heroic dungeons.

Character Planner

The Character Planner returns personalized gear suggestions for you and shows which content has the most upgrades.

Simply load up the planner with you preferred character and it will list gear recommendations in a 20 ilvl range for you.It will also list how many gear upgrades each boss has so you can plan out bonus rolls. Finally, the character planner will perform an audit and let you know ifyou have any missing enchants, glyphs, or gems.

If you have a character in our Profiler which is great for tracking vanity collections and viewing your character in our 3D modelviewer,you can click on the "Planner" button in the header to access the tool. If you don't, you can just enter your information in at Tools > Character Planner.

Item Filters

Wowhead utilizes a powerful system of item filters to narrow down the gear you need.

On http://www.wowhead.com/items, you can enter in some basic options at the top--the name of the item, its item level, the level the players needs to be.The "Usable by" dropdowns cover factions, class, and role.

The dropdown menu right above "Stat Weights" opens to display a variety of advanced options. These cover the following:

General item info such as Added in Expansion/Patch, BoE/BoP, Unique-Equipped, Class-Specific.

Source: All in-game sources, ranging from raid difficulties to the Black Market Auction House to sold by a vendor.

Miscellaneous: Many of these filters are not relevant to equippable gear such as Crafting Reagents and Toys, but you can filter for items that are currently obtainable.

Once you've selected a filter from the menu, click on Apply filter for search results. You can repeat the process to filter for multiple criteria at once--for example, Agility gear that is found in Mythic Foundry.

Over on the right-hand side of the page, you can select a particular Gear Slot or Quality to narrow results even further.